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As the glowing sun set over the bloody fields of Antietem, the Civil War became a different War. Five days after the battle at Antietem was won, armed with pen and paper, Abraham Lincoln changed the war when he issued, one of the most important and controversial documents in America history, the Emancipation Proclamation. Congress was urging emancipation. Escaped slaves were fleeing to the Union army as it advanced in the South, complicating military operations.Issued on September 22, 1862, Lincoln's preliminary proclamation declared that on New Year's, 1863, slaves in areas then "in rebellion against the United States shall be then, henceforward, and forever
free."

The final Emancipation Proclamation, issued January 1, 1863, authorized the recruitment of blacks into the Union Army, which abolitionist leaders such as Frederick Douglass had been urging since the beginning of armed conflict. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

The Emancipation Proclamation opposed discrimination. It allowed black slaves to serve in the army and get other jobs, or continue to work on plantations, as employees making money. However it was limited in many ways. It did not apply to slaves in border states fighting on the Union Side. It didn't even affect slaves in southern areas already under Union control. Without a doubt, the states in rebellion did not act on Lincoln's order. But the proclamation did show Americans that the Civil War was now being fought to end slavery.

This great document helped shatter the issue of slavery. Slavery was completly crushed with the 13TH Amendment. Black soldiers lead a celebration among South Carolina slaves for the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. For decades after the Civil War, African-Americans made it a folkway to celebrate Emancipation Day.

The decision to use the blacks as soldiers was by no means...